Report of a correspondent of the Kamgar Ekta Committed (KEC)
All India Railway Track Maintainers’ Union, Western Railway, Mumbai Division (AIRTU) and Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC), jointly organised a meeting of workers in Mumbai on the occasion of May Day. Railway workers including Track Maintainers, Train Managers, Ticket Checkers and those working in Indian Railways workshops, garment workers, IT workers, professors and teachers etc. attended the meeting.
The meeting hall was decorated with banners “Workers of the World, Unite! And Long Live May Day!”.
A speaker from AIRTU welcomed everyone and urged them to understand the history of May Day. He explained that the real history of May Day is deliberately hidden from working people because the ruling capitalist class is afraid that working class would be inspired by that valiant demonstration of workers’ solidarity in their struggle against capitalist exploitation.
He further explained that even now most of the working people of our country including those working in the Indian Railways are forced to work for 12-14 hours, and advances in the field of science and technology have not helped to improve their lives and working conditions. He explained that not only unity of Indian Railway workers across all categories is necessary, but to permanently end capitalist exploitation it is necessary to unite with the entire working class overcoming any divisions based on religion, caste, language, region, gender, and country.
The KEC speaker sketched the history of struggle of workers across the world for an 8-hour working day. The struggle of American workers led by the workers of Chicago in 1886 had greatly inspired the revolutionary working class leaders who had gathered in July 1889 for the formation of the Second International. That is why they declared that the working people of all the countries of the world would honour the Chicago martyrs by celebrating 1 May every year as International Workers’ Day. That tradition has continued to this day.
Tracing the history of May Day in India, he explained that it was on 1 May 1923 that May Day was first celebrated in Chennai, under the leadership of Comrade Singarvelu of Labour Kisan Party of Hindusthan. That event also highlighted the socialist consciousness of the Indian working class. Legal working day of 8 hours was finally won when in the 1948 Factories Act, 48 hours working week with one weekly off was made the law. The reality however is that not only an 8-hour working day but almost all the rights of the working people remain only on paper and are brazenly trampled on every day.
Another speaker elaborated on the KEC statement released on the occasion of May Day. All the wealth of the country is created by the sweat and labour of the working people of our country but the fruits are pocketed by the capitalist class. The entire government machinery works to defend the interests of the capitalist class. The electoral system ensures that whichever party can serve the capitalist class best at a given time, is handed over the responsibility to manage the government. Hence, he explained that the working people need to establish a new system which will ensure that they would have a decisive decision-making power in all the affairs of the country and the elected representatives would be fully accountable to those who elected them. So, the real call of the May Day is to work towards establishing the rule of workers and peasants, he said.
In the discussions that followed, all the participants agreed that it is the working people who are capable of ruling our country in the best interests of all. Many of those who attended the meeting expressed their solidarity with the views presented in the meeting. All participants agreed to spread the real history of May Day and to instil confidence in the working people that they can be the rulers.
Revolutionary songs and songs and poems on the lives of the working people interspersed the proceedings and contributed to the lively atmosphere.